Class of 1835
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TEFFT

DR. TEFFT was born in Floyd, Oneida Co., N. Y., August 20, 1813. He died Sept. 16, 1885, in Brewer, Me. 

The following record of his long and prominent career is taken, with slight alterations and abridgment, from an editorial notice in Zion’s Herald:

Immediately upon graduation Mr. Tefft taught in Maine Wesleyan Seminary, was then a very successful pastor of the First M. E. Church, Bangor, and, later, was Principal of Greenwich Seminary.  In 1842 he was called to be pastor of a new M. E. Church which was formed in Boston, and held its services in the Odeon, on Federal Street.  Dr. Tefft was then in his, prime, a very eloquent and popular preacher, winning the warm esteem of a large congregation.  His throat failing him, he traveled South and West. From 1843 to ‘46 he was Professor of Greek and Hebrew in the Indiana Asbury University, from which chair he was elected editor of the Ladies’ Repository in 1846.  His editorial services were well appreciated by an increasing number of subscribers to this periodical.  From 1851 to ‘54 he was President of Genesee College, Lima, N. Y., and in 1852 was a delegate to General Conference.  The degree of Doctor in Divinity was bestowed upon him by the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1846, and that of Doctor of Laws by the Madison University in 1852.  Again in 1856 to ‘60 he was pastor of the First M. E. Church, Bangor, and of the Mission which it established, and in the succeeding year was pastor of the newly-formed Second Church.

With the opening of the war his eloquent voice was constantly heard in support of the Government, and in appeals to the patriotic ardor of his fellow-citizens.

In 1862 he was sent as United States Consul to Stockholm, and was acting Minister to Sweden.  In 1864 he remained abroad as a Commissioner of Immigration from the North of Europe, in the interests of the State of Maine.  He has been elected to a number of societies of art, science and literature in this country and Europe.  He edited and published in Bangor, with marked ability, the Northern Border, a weekly secular paper.  He was a member of the Maine Legislature in 1874, and had a wide reputation as an intelligent and successful business man and well trained statesman.  The state of his throat and lungs prevented his continuing the pastoral office, but he has ever been ready and eager to preach, as his health and opportunities permitted.  He was a very persuasive preacher, with a charming voice, eminently thoughtful and inspiring in his days of physical strength, well equipped for controversy, and continuing his literary and theological studies to the last.  He wrote a number of books, of which the most important were: “The Shoulder Knot,” 1850; “Hungary and Kossuth,” 1851; “Webster and His Masterpieces,” 1854; “Methodism Successful,” 1860; and the work lately issued from the press of Lee & Shepard on “Evolution.”  He had his strong friends, and provoked at times opposition. He was positive in his opinions and pertinacious in sustaining them; but he was of kindly and warm affections, and was a sincere disciple of the Lord Jesus, in whom, for peace and salvation, he confidently trusted.

Source:  Obituary Record of Alumni of Wesleyan University for the Academic Year Ending June 24, 1886, Middletown, Conn. 1886